The #1 Tip on the College Recruiting Process

The Absolute Most Important Advice I Can Give You

If you believe that your daughter may have the skills and desire to play college softball at any level and is in 9th grade or higher, GET A SKILLS VIDEO NOW! A skills video is a brief (about 3-5 minutes) demonstration of your daughter's physical ability to play softball. College coaches will take 3 minutes to watch the video and will decide whether they're interested or not. If they are interested, they will want to come watch your daughter play. They do not want to read a book of your achievements, awards or community services.

Assuming your daughter is emailing coaches her player profile and skills video link, she should also include her upcoming tournament schedule with game times and field locations.

Player Profiles

The old school of thought was that players needed to create Player Profile documents they could email or print and handout to coaches. There are still plenty of people who will tell you how important that is. From my personal experience, professional associates, friends, fellow parents and in talking directly with college coaches I can assure you that creating highly detailed player profiles is a complete waste of time.

Here's all the information you need on a player profile: Name, Jersey #, Head Shot Picture, Graduation Year, Positions Played, Bats/Throws, Height, Weight, High School, GPA, ACT, SAT, Travel Coach Contact Information and a Skills Video Link. For really fast girls they may add their home to 1st base and home to home times. For pitchers they may add the average speed of their fast ball. For catchers they may add their pop times. The coaches will look at your video and know if you're being honest with each of those speeds/times and if you're not, they will not give you the time of day.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of your daughter having a skills video. And I would highly recommend contacting my friend Brian Chidester to have your daughter's video professionally produced and prominently placed on his web siite (College Bound Jocks). He also offers additional services to help parents with the recruiting process. Brian's daughter Amanda (Chiddy) was an All-American at the University of Michigan and is currently a member of Team USA.

The first video is of my daughter Hayley - Outfield and Power Hitter

This video is of Hayley's former teammate - Middle Infield, Hitter and Pitcher

This video is another former teammate of Hayley's - Catcher, Corner Infield and Power Hitter